


Rejection - Adrien

by ChaoticNeutral



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Done Goofed, Adrien Rejected Marinette, Chameleon Salt, Gen, Humor, In Which Protecting The Bully Was The Wrong Answer, Miraculous Salt Fic, Petty Marinette, Rejection, Revenge, Salty Ladybug, Unrequited Love, Wouldn't Be So Bad But It Was For The Wrong Reason, ml spite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticNeutral/pseuds/ChaoticNeutral
Summary: An alternate follow up to Apex-Primus's Moral Dues/Rejection AU.Marinette finally confessed to Adrien, only to be rejected. But the worst part isn't just that he didn't return her feelings, but that the reason was on behalf of Lila, who had been doing nothing but lying and making Marinette miserable.He knew Lila was lying but said nothing. He had told her he would support her and yet he did nothing. All he did was leave her to deal with this on her own and then judge her for it.Adrien struggles with the aftermath and went to Ladybug for help only to discover he had been the boy she was crushing on all along. But his joy is quickly shattered when she reveals she can't be with him.Because he's apparently dating Lila Rossi.Only nobody told him this.





	Rejection - Adrien

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rejection AU Thread](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/499111) by Various. 



> A continuation of the Rejection AU Thread on tumblr and my third contribution, following a line that includes both the previous Felix and Pettybug additions as well as others. See the link below.

* * *

Ladybug liked him.

Ladybug…liked… _him_.

All this time, the one who had his lady’s heart was none other than himself!

Okay, sure, it was his civilian self, but still! He had been competing against HIMSELF this entire time!

It was—it was practically a dream come true!

But that dream shattered and became a nightmare within minutes when the love of his life announced that Adrien Agreste was already dating someone else—that he was dating LILA of all people, which was the first HE’D heard of it. _And HE’S Adrien!_

“The love of my life thinks I’m dating her enemy!”

“How tragic.” Plagg intoned dryly.

“Why would she think that?”

Plagg gave him a flat stare. “Why indeed? It’s not like you’ve been defending her or anything.”

His comment seemed to go over the boy’s head as Adrien only moaned in response.

“Just…why would she even think that? Who would even TELL HER THAT?!”

“Well, what have you done to make people think that?” Plagg asked, being surprisingly a bit more helpful than normal—which was still no help at all.

“Nothing! I’m not dating Lila! She’s just a friend!”

“Like Marinette?”

Adrien froze.

“Because I have to say, kid, you haven’t exactly been treating Marinette like a friend.”

Adrien frowned in puzzlement, starting to feel defensive. “I was just being honest.”

Plagg shook his head in clear disagreement. “No, Marinette was being honest. She was honest in confronting Lila and honest in approaching you about her feelings. Tonight might have been the only time she WASN’T honest.”

“That’s another thing. Why did Marinette lie about earlier?”

“You mean the way she told Chat you how Adrien you had been ‘nice’ in the way you ‘not so nicely’ threw her feelings back in her face, judged her for how she was dealing with someone actively targeting her, and went so far as to physically assault her?”

Adrien balked at that. “I—I didn’t assault her! If anything, she hit me!”

“Assault isn’t just slapping someone. You were the one who grabbed her. You were the one who refused to let go. And you did it all because you were trying to force her to promise something she didn’t want to, solely for the purpose of protecting someone who has been actively trying to hurt her.”

That actually gave him pause. “That was…kind of bad, wasn’t it?”

“Kind of bad is putting it mildly.” The kwami replied dryly.

Plagg was unfortunately all too aware of just who Ladybug really was. And if she was pulling this on his kid, that meant she knew who HE was. And she was NOT happy with him right now.

Part of him wanted to be upset with her for this stunt. But after what had happened earlier that day…

Yeah, his anger had nothing on hers. And quite frankly, he couldn’t blame her for being ticked. He was certainly annoyed himself, and he hadn’t been the one on the receiving end of the lecture and holier than thou attitude. It was the sort of thing akumas were created from, and he’d spent the better part of the day paranoid that they were going to have to face the mother of them all because of Adrien’s particularly poor choice of the day.

“Quite frankly, you’re lucky the worst Marinette has done tonight is lie to you. After that stunt with the liar and your less than smooth follow up, we could have had an akuma on our hands—and it wouldn’t have been Lila.”

Adrien winced at that, recalling the scene he had stumbled across at the park. In his exuberance over discovering Ladybug’s feelings for him, he had forgotten about it. Though truthfully, he had been trying to forget about it even before that and ease the guilt, which is why he had brought up the matter to Ladybug in the first place. She was good with relationships and giving advice. Surely she could reassure him.

Instead, she had gone on about her own crush, revealing her feelings for him—for ADRIEN, only to turn around and give up with him over a blatant lie!

The thought of someone lying to his lady about him—whether his masked self or regular self—infuriated him.

He needed to correct this. But he needed to know how she got this information in the first place.

He also needed to check in with Marinette. Clearly she wasn’t taking this too well.

“I should apologize to her tomorrow.”

Plagg relaxed. Finally progress!

“I mean, I have to set a better example so she knows the right thing to do, right?”

And just like that, progress was gone.

“Whoa! Whoa! Hold the phone! Adrien, did you listen to anything Marinette said today?”

“Of course I did!" Adrien replied. "She felt I wasn’t supporting her. I should have spent more time with her so I could at least show her the right thing to do and we could try to help correct Lila’s behavior together.”

He couldn’t believe his ears!

“Right way—kid, do you even understand WHY Marinette is upset?”

Adrien paused at that. He knew. He had heard her words, but that wasn’t it at all. Marinette just didn’t understand the situation.

“She felt I was siding with Lila. But I’m not!”

“Aren’t you?” Plagg questioned. “Because from where your girl has been sitting, it sure looks like you have.”

“Fighting with Lila isn’t going to make her a better person.”

“Neither is enabling her!” He exclaimed, agitated. “You’ve been spending the past several weeks trying to ‘make Lila a better person’. Not only have her lies continued, they've gotten worse! And all this has been doing is encouraging her to keep up her antics while hurting Marinette’s feelings in the process.”

“But Lila needs the extra help if she’s going to change. Marinette is a better person than that.” And she was. That was why Adrien could count on Marinette and trust her to do the right thing. Or at least, he thought he did. But as things continued, it seemed more and more like she was only trying to confront Lila and set off conflict.

“Newsflash, Adrien! Lila doesn’t WANT to change! She has no reason TO change! And with you knowing she’s lying but doing nothing to call her on it as well as with the rest of the class fully believing her lies, she has all the more reason to continue!”

Adrien opened his mouth to respond, but Plagg cut him off.

“This isn’t one of your animes. You can’t just keep giving in to someone like Lila and hope things will get better—that’s just a toxic relationship waiting to happen! That’s Sabrina’s relationship with Chloe right now! That’s how you’ve been with Chloe all this time and look at how things are!”

“But Chloe’s getting better.” Adrien argued.

“Not as much as she should be by this point and even that didn’t start until after she got a good kick to the rear first!” Plagg hissed. “You being nice to Chloe while ignoring her deplorable behavior didn’t encourage her to do better and it’s certainly not making a difference with Lila. Judging Marinette for refusing to follow in your footsteps when those steps are going nowhere but leaving you knee-deep in mud is not fair to her! Especially when you’re expecting her to do it for someone who has been actively targeting her!”

“Lila hasn’t been that bad…”

Plagg gave him a dry look. “Besides the akumas she’s already helped to create, she has been needling Marinette constantly over the past several weeks. And rather than support her like you said you would, you’ve been playing peacekeeper in a way that often requires Marinette to be the one to back down and apologize for things that aren’t her fault while Lila cries crocodile tears and continues to antagonize her. You KNOW this. What you’ve been doing…it’s not support. And it’s not fair to Marinette or really to any of your other friends to let them be manipulated just to keep Lila happy.”

“But what if Lila is akumatized?”

The cat god stared up at him bewildered.

“So Marinette should be akumatized instead?”

“What—no!”

“What about Nino? He’s your best friend. Should he be akumatized once he finds out the truth?”

“No!”

“How about the others in the class? Alya? Kim? Chloe? Should any or all of them have to be akumatized once they find out that Lila’s stories are false and her promises aren’t going to happen?”

“No! I don’t want anyone to be akumatized!”

“The way things are going now, someone is bound to be.” Plagg warned. “And it’s completely preventable. That’s what Marinette has been trying to prevent and that is what you’ve been telling her to let happen.”

“I haven’t!” Adrien insisted. But he recalled Felix’s words spoken earlier that day. How Adrien was a bully. How he was an enabler. How he cared more about keeping the status quo than the people in it.

Felix wasn’t actually right about him, was he?

Adrien shook his head.

No. He wasn’t the one in the wrong. He was trying to reach out and help people be better. Marinette was already a good person with friends and accomplishments. Surely she can understand. She’s reached out to Chloe before.

“I just need to talk to her tomorrow. We can try to get this whole thing straightened out.”

Plagg wasn’t impressed, nor was he looking particularly hopeful.

“And…” Adrien paused before giving in. “I’ll apologize. Even if my point wasn’t wrong, the way I went about it really hurt her. I never meant to make it seem like I cared more about Lila than her. It wasn’t fair to her.”

Plagg sighed. That was probably the best he could hope for right now. Marinette may or may not forgive Adrien for his stunt, but whatever happened, they would both learn from it at least. And maybe Adrien would finally wise up and understand that trying to save the people you can’t reach can come at the cost of those you could have.

But if they talk things out when they’re both calmer…when Marinette has had time to quell her anger and Adrien has had time to figure out how to convey his feelings as feelings rather than judgement, then maybe they can work this out.

It was an hour later and Adrien was about to go to bed when he suddenly gasped, getting Plagg’s attention. Concerned, the kwami turned to face him, seeing the way the boy’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

“What is it, Adrien?”

Adrien turned to him, looking for all purposes like he had just discovered the solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem. “You don’t think Marinette was the one who told Ladybug I was dating Lila, do you?”

Plagg stared at the kid, bewildered and not just the slightest bit annoyed at his focus.

“Do you really think Marinette would have had the time or reason to get ahold of Ladybug today and tell her something so minor as who her crush is dating?”

Okay, it wasn’t technically a real answer since Plagg knew that Marinette and Ladybug were one and the same, but the sheer leap in logic here was too baffling to warrant a real answer.

“You’re right.” Adrien gave in with a sigh. “It’s not like Marinette would know Ladybug had a crush on me.”

Plagg let out a breath in relief. Honestly, they weren’t going to get anywhere if his kid kept focusing on the minor things. At least he was starting to focus.

“Maybe it was Felix?”

He could feel an eye twitching at this point.

Having enough, Plagg decided he was done for the night and went off to drown himself in cheese. Kwamis should not have to put up with this much trouble.

Let the boy do what the boy was going to do. He was too tired for this.

* * *

“Felix? Hey, Felix!”

The teen in question sighed as he was forcibly pulled from his book by the voice calling his name. And it had been starting out as such a nice day, too.

He turned to face Adrien Agreste, who was quite frankly the last person Felix wanted to see this early in the morning. Especially after the stunt he pulled the previous day. “Can I help you?”

Adrien looked up at him, appearing wary. “I’ve noticed some rumors going around.”

And already Felix didn’t care. He didn’t take much stock in rumors as it was. A few were good for a laugh, but otherwise they were often baseless and pointless for anything other brief grabs at attention.

Seeing the other wasn’t continuing unless he gave some response, Felix resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“…And?”

“I just wanted to know…did you tell Ladybug that Lila and I were dating?” Adrien demanded.

Felix stared, confused by the question and whether it was supposed to be some sort of joke. But Agreste was glaring at him with all the righteous indignation of someone who believed his question was already answered before asking and Felix wasn’t sure he could respond in a way that would appease the other blond. From his tone and his expression, it seemed that Agreste had already made up his mind and it would take more time and energy than Felix could really be bothered to spare to try and convince him otherwise.

So of course, Felix responded by being Felix.

“Sure, Agreste. I spent a whole afternoon of unfinished homework and other more pressing tasks instead trying to flag down a superhero who only occasionally appears in public just to spread unfounded gossip about you and another person I don’t care about concerning your nonexistent love lives that I care even less about.”

He gaped. And Felix wondered if that wouldn’t be the end of that.

“How could you do that?!”

But of course it wasn’t. Because this was Felix and life hated him apparently.

Felix spared the other boy his best nonverbal ‘you are an idiot and I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk to you’ stare.

“Because clearly the art of sarcasm is beyond your understanding.”

“Hey!”


End file.
